We are students of a digital age. Most days, we do not write assignments on paper, but submit lengthy word documents as Canvas assignments. We watch pixelated confetti rain down our laptop screens, give ourselves a pat on the back, then switch tabs to Netflix.
Both academic learning and entertainment platforms exist conveniently on the Internet. The Internet physically simplifies one’s transition from the state of work to that of rest, but the fact that work and play have become so shoulder-to-shoulder also risks impeding students’ abilities to learn and focus.
Among the many entertainment-related industries that thrive today, the Subscription-Video-On-Demand (SVOD) streaming services industry has grown rapidly over the past decade, its market size reaching an estimate of USD 95.50 billion in 2024. On 20 November, 2025, 36 followers participated in a poll on The Phoenix’s Instagram to answer the question, “How many streaming services do you have?” Nine people voted one subscription, another nine voted two subscriptions, six voted three, and twelve voted three or more.
Streaming services charge close to CAD 20 per month, and have been continuously increasing their costs, yet 33% of respondents, who are mostly students, willingly pay the cost thrice or more. Even if their parents pay that cost for them on the basis of household subscription plans, these statistics reflect a curious allure about SVOD platforms to university students.
The statistics also beg three questions: Why do students like to own multiple streaming services? How does this form of entertainment impact our lives? How do we strike a balance between academics and entertainment?
One of the obvious allures of having multiple SVOD streaming platforms is variety. Be it movies, reality TV, or documentary, streaming services gather many forms of content and make them readily available to users within the same digital space. In that space, content is varied not only in form but also genre, language, and the time of release.
If you wanted to, you could watch The Godfather (1972) and KPop Demon Hunters (2025) in one sitting — I would be very curious, though, to hear about your emotional trajectory within those four-and-a-half hours.
In all seriousness, students often crave a self-curated emotional rollercoaster. Watching a classic mafia crime film followed by an intercultural animation musical is far more stimulating than the typical university routine: wake up, go to class, study, sleep, and repeat. A sense of lost agency and numbness comes with a routine lifestyle like one of a student. That is where on-demand streaming comes into play, giving users a feeling of empowerment in being able to choose what they want to watch and feel what they want to feel.
These streaming platforms have become intertwined with our lives, and have had significant impacts on our modes of social interaction as well as our bodies and minds.
These days, dates or hang-outs with friends often involve watching a show together on Netflix. One can even find friends through the content hosted on the platform. Just think about the millions that gathered online at the same time on 27 June, 2025, for the release of Squid Games Season 3. Community can be found in discussing such shows on social media. In these ways, SVOD platforms bring people together by giving us something to look forward to and talk about together.
However, despite the variety of choice, emotional relief, and sense of community, too much time spent on SVOD platforms turns into an unhealthy form of escapism. Relaxation becomes far too easy. The broad streaming catalog and seamless skips from one episode to the next offer constant stimulation and a possibility to be entertained endlessly. Not only does that escapism tempt a person to stay in front of the screen for long stretches of time, it also encourages a sedentary lifestyle, entailing repercussions like worsened eye-sight, reduced physical exercise, and an increased risk of illness, among other consequences.
Psychologically, it can lead to “Netflix Syndrome.” In a study on the effects of content choice deferral, Hun Kim, Choi Junghwan, and Bao Tantan write that “as users’ range of choices has diversified and become overloaded, the time spent thinking about what content to watch rather than watching content is increasing.”
In other words, Netflix Syndrome is spending your whole study break scrolling down the streaming catalog, comparing your options, debating which is more worth your time, and rarely, if ever, landing on a pick before break time is over. This habit of choice deferral can cause negative internal states. What could have been a time of rest becomes filled with “self-criticism, regret, and despair” because the more options you have to choose from, the harder it is to settle on one.
Besides disrupting one’s headspace with moments of indecision, on-demand streaming also impacts our abilities to focus and think critically. When acts like fast-forwarding and clicking out of a movie halfway become habitual, our attention spans become narrower. While these acts free us from the need to sit through a bad movie in theatres, that freedom is ultimately made up of dopamine hits that reward a passive brain.
What is more, the Internet has churned out more temptations than just SVOD that keep us from learning actively. Generative AI (GenAI) tools, for example, quicken or even replace the analytical process of students writing lab reports or summarising academic readings, encouraging a prioritisation of efficiency over depth in learning.
Even though the use of GenAI is prohibited in many courses, some students pay professional writers to do their essays for them through essay writing services like EduBirdie. These services operate legally on the basis that no plagiarism is involved since they technically produce original work for students, but from an academic standpoint, not only are such online tools ethically questionable, but they also combine with the endless streaming content on SVOD to impede students’ intellectual development.
Considering the physical, psychological, and intellectual consequences, it is important that students are careful not to indulge in on-demand streaming, but when subscribed to three or more SVOD platforms, that is easier said than done. How might you break out of the streaming cycle?
1. Set screen time limits on your devices, and stick to them. Most phones and tablets these days contain built-in settings that help you monitor your device usage. You can customize screen time limits as a whole or for individual apps, such that those apps automatically get locked after you have used them for a set amount of time each day. Start by limiting your screen time on SVOD apps to an hour a day — maybe less — and when your device tells you your time is up, do not ask it for an extra fifteen minutes.
2. Just pick a show! The options seem limitless, but your time is limited. Instead of overthinking your pick, go with your gut and watch the first show that catches your eye. Even if it ends up being a bad one, you can get a good laugh out of trashing it with your friends.
3. Cut down on subscriptions. As mentioned earlier, on-demand streaming services can provide emotional relief in the mundane and build community, but these benefits only sustain when streaming is done in moderation. So, despite what the ads tell you, perhaps you do not want to be subscribed to three or more.
In transitioning from cable TV and DVD media to on-demand streaming, we have traded many valuable parts of our lives in exchange for convenience. We have given up picking a Blu-ray disc with our families in favour of algorithm-generated recommendations, and ownership of physical media in favour of a lifetime-supply of content that is temporary and leaves us with nothing to keep for ourselves when we unsubscribe. It is by taking measures to protect ourselves from falling into the rabbit hole of on-demand streaming that we might start to reclaim some of that lost interaction with the physical world and time spent with people who matter more than the content on our devices.
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